MEXICO CITY—Mexican soldiers have rescued 165 people kidnapped a drug cartel and held for as long as three weeks in a one-storey home alongside the U.S. border.

National security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez says 150 victims were U.S.-bound migrants from Central America. Fourteen were Mexicans and one was from India. He said Thursday at a news conference that a 20-year-old man found guarding the house was detained.

Sanchez said the army rescued the group on Tuesday in Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, a town across the border from McAllen, Texas. He gave no information on which cartel was suspected.

The Zetas cartel is behind most abduction of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2010, the cartel was blamed for killing 72 migrants in northern Mexico.